[FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.]
Psalms, Hymns & Anthems used in the Chapel of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of exposed & deserted Children.
[London], 1774 [but c. 1780?]
8vo, pp. [2], 126, [2, blank], 127–141, [1], with an etched title-page by Sanders dated February 1774, engraved music (pp. 1–126, Caulfield sculp.), and letterpress ‘Additional Anthems’ and ‘Index’ (pp. 127–141); portion of blank margin of titlepage torn away, pp. 125–6 just shaved at fore-edge, a little shaken, but a good copy in contemporary sheep, worn, rebacked; ownership inscription to title-page of ‘Miss Hogg, 1786'.
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Psalms, Hymns & Anthems used in the Chapel of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of exposed & deserted Children.
The Foundling Hospital was established by Thomas Coram in 1739 as Britain’s first charity for the care of orphaned or abandoned children. ‘The Hospital chapel, in use by 1749 and officially opened in 1753, soon became well known for its music as well as for its elegant architecture and adornments’ (Temperley), not least because of the close involvement of Handel, who was a governor, gave the chapel its first organ, and established there the success of Messiah. ‘The singing of the children at ordinary Sunday services was a great attraction to fashionable London and became an important source of income to the Hospital through pew rents and voluntary contributions. Music was specially composed and arranged for the Hospital chapel, and the success of the singing led to a demand for this music, which was met by the publication of a book called Psalms, Hymns and Anthems; for the Use of the Chapel of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. It is generally known more informally as the Foundling Hospital Collection’ (Temperley).
Nicholas Temperley has established eight different printings of the Foundling Hospital Collection, from 1760 (pp. 12, surviving in a single copy at Illinois) to 1809, the contents gradually increasing. The current edition employs the engraved plates of the much-expanded edition of 1774, the first with an engraved title-page, with music by Smith, Greene, Worgan, Stanley, Evance, and others, to which is added a new letterpress section of the words only of some ‘Additional Anthems’. ESTC does not properly distinguish between the ‘1774’ printings.
Temperley B/b; BUCEM, p. 835; RISM Recueils, p. 293 (making no distinction between printings). See Nicholas Temperley, ‘The Hymn Books of the Foundling and Magdalen Hospital Chapels’, Music Publishing & Collecting: Essays in Honor of Donald W. Krummel (1994), pp. 3–37.
